ASK Jonjo O’Neill for his most memorable moment at Cheltenham and the answer, inevitably, is, ‘Dawn Run. It was a day in a lifetime. It could never happen again.’

The way the pair fought back up the run-in to win the 1986 Gold Cup, after staring at defeat when she was overtaken going into the last fence, is an indelible part of Irish folklore, legendary throughout the world of jumping and sport beyond.

Watch the recording for the umpteenth time and she still can’t get up to win – but she did.

But, surprisingly, the prospective ride on Dawn Run was not what Jonjo was most looking forward to that day. Indeed, until a few short weeks before, he did not think he would have the ride, and the way he was feeling, he hardly cared. In fact, having had a couple of distinctly hairy schooling sessions on Dawn Run at home in Doninga, Co Kilkenny, under the scrutiny of trainer Paddy Mullins (a proposed race-ride at Punchestown having been snowed off), Jonjo could not understand why she was running in the Gold Cup at all, let alone as favourite. The Gold Cup was Jonjo’s first public appearance on her in a chase, although he had been aboard for five hurdle races. Four of these were wins, including the 1984 Champion Hurdle.

No, what was uppermost in Jonjo’s mind before that March day in 1986 was his ride in the last race of the Festival, the County Handicap Hurdle. He had been anticipating it with relish for months.

This was what was keeping him going, because, since being brought down in a pile-up in a hurdle race at Kelso, he had been feeling decidedly ill. So ill, in fact, that he was seriously considering quitting the saddle. But he was determined to win that race first.

He recalls clearly the fall that led to him feeling so poorly: three of them were in single file - Chris Grant, Phil Tuck and then him. The leader fell and brought down the other two. But, sore as he was, Jonjo asked a friend, Gordon Smith, to drive him to Ascot, for rides on Just Alec and Jobroke. Kevin Mooney substituted for him on the first ride, but Jonjo felt well enough for the next. The horse’s trainer, Peter Easterby, at home near Malton in North Yorkshire, was sending messages that he shouldn’t ride.

‘Tell him you can’t find me,’ Jonjo said to Gordon Smith. He changed and weighed out, so that it was too late to change the jockey. The pair won ‘cosily’ and, in spite of his increasing tiredness and aching, it furthered his incentive to keep going for Cheltenham. Jobroke would win the County Hurdle, of that he was sure. The gelding had been ‘laid out’ for the race by trainer Peter Easterby, owner Colonel Dick Warden and Jonjo himself, and was set to carry only 10st 3lb.

Come the day, Jonjo won the epic Gold Cup on Dawn Run. The euphoria of the Irish, and indeed all of those in attendance, was tangible, almost as it had been for her Champion Hurdle success two years earlier.

On that occasion, the fans pouring into the winners’ enclosure tried to tear memorabilia from the helpless jockey. Jonjo hung on to his number cloth and breast girth as fans had him literally off his legs, trying to pull them off him on the way to the weighing room. He spent the whole of those 20 yards clutching on to the items for dear life – without them at weigh-in Dawn Run would be disqualified.

As racing author Tim Richards so cogently noted, in Jonjo’s words in his 1985 autobiography, ‘The admiring thousands stood shoulder to shoulder above us [as they rode in] and as I raised my arm with a wave of appreciation before I dismounted, the response was instantaneous …’ But mob rule nearly spoiled the party; many had infiltrated the enclosure, and ‘as about 20 of them surrounded me and cut me off from the main, noisy, admiring crowd, which numbered thousands … panic nearly set in as I fought against a sea of people pressing from all sides. My number cloth slid from under my saddle and my breast girth was being tugged from my arm, which was laden with tack. Without these vital pieces of equipment I would fail to pass the eagle-eyed clerk of the scales, George Gregory, at the weigh-in and he would object to the stewards, who, in turn, would have no option but to do the unthinkable and disqualify Dawn Run. … I was on my own at the heart of an over-excited mob … the number cloth was being wrenched from me by a souvenir hunter … no sooner had that battle been won (thanks to another unknown Irishman) than I realised someone else was tugging at my breast girth. … I called on all my reserves of strength for one last wrench.’

Today, the paddock area is strictly patrolled. Such scenes, no matter their misguided enthusiasm, are nearly a thing of the past (although an occasional fan has been known to get through).

INCREDIBLE

Two years later, when Dawn Run achieved the incredible Champion Hurdle/Gold Cup double, it cannot be said that security had yet reached the level of today. However, while the scenes were ecstatic and the enthusiasm electric, there was not the real danger to the race result that there had been after the Champion Hurdle.

The Gold Cup victory was not only Jonjo’s career highlight, but also one of the most memorable moments in the sport’s then 232-year history.

For the record, Jonjo then duly signed off on his Cheltenham riding career with exactly the win he had coveted, on Jobroke in the last race of the day.

Barely six weeks later, he was diagnosed with cancer.

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Jonjo did not come the pony-racing/point-to-pointing route into racing, but via hunting. Once he had his first pony, Dolly – a £27.2s.0d purchase from Tullow fair – he lived for the sport, following the Duhallow hounds in Co Cork. He admired the style and riding aplomb of Anne, Duchess of Westminster, and he hero-worshipped the McLernon, Harding and Murphy families, all steeped in National Hunt racing, who took him to local point-to-points.

At the end of a long day’s hunting, with Jonjo quite lost, one of them would point him in the direction of home, and off he would set, dusk gathering. When he wasn’t hunting with the Duhallow, he went out with a local harrier pack on a Sunday. He just loved hunting, and the craic that accompanied it. It also gave him a good eye across country, and a secure seat, both crucial in jump racing.

On one such day, the whole hunt stopped at a cottage, tied up their horses outside, and watched a crackly black-and-white transmission of the 1966 Cheltenham Gold Cup. The Duchess’s Arkle, trained by Tom Dreaper, scored his third consecutive victory under Pat Taaffe, in spite of demolishing the fence at half way.

INSPIRATION

This was Jonjo’s introduction to Cheltenham, and he determined to get there one day. His original racing inspiration had come three years earlier, when 19-year-old Pat Buckley steered Ayala to victory in the Grand National. From watching those two races, Jonjo’s destiny was decided.

He began riding out for Chris Major’s private trainer Donald Reid (whose son, Fred, became a well-known Lambourn farrier) in nearby Mallow, and stayed there once he had left school. The trainer returned to England and, with Jonjo weighing barely six stone, he was apprenticed to an extremely tough flat trainer on the Curragh.

With that behind him, and weight increasing, jumping beckoned. He got one or two moderate rides, and won on Irish Painter at Downpatrick for trainer Mick Connolly.

Then a spare ride came along, without any high hopes, that was to set him upward on his chosen path. The owner was Mrs Guy Sharrick, the horse was Mount Royale and it was his first time over fences, in Navan. The pair won – and England beckoned.

Jonjo moved to Gordon Richards’ stable in Greystoke Castle, Penrith, where ‘Big’ Ron Barry was stable jockey, and Cumbria remained his home for many years. Jonjo became champion conditional jockey, and then a top senior one, during the five years he was there, but with the injuries that he also suffered, his career was in jeopardy more than once.

When the first leg break happened, on a horse called Night Affair at Teeside early in 1975, he could see his bone sticking out through his boot ‘like a nail’. He had broken his tibia and fibula, the main lower leg bones, as well as his knee.

By the time he broke his tibia and fibula for a second time, riding at Bangor in October 1980, he was already champion jockey.

TEMPTING MORSELS

With superlative Cheltenham rides in the offing – tempting morsels like Sea Pigeon to retain the Champion Hurdle, and former champion hurdler Night Nurse who he was convinced would win the Gold Cup – he wanted to be the man on board.

His impatience cost him those rides – and almost lost him his leg. He tried riding out long before his ever-helpful surgeon said he should, and the not-yet mended leg, unable to take the strain, now resembled shards. Jonjo ended up under the knife in a Swiss clinic, his surgeon in attendance. On waking up, he did not know whether or not his leg had been amputated. It had been touch-and-go.

For the record, Sea Pigeon won the Champion Hurdle again, in the hands of John Francome, and Night Nurse finished second. Little could Jonjo guess then that he would still be the man to steer home the first and, so far, only winner of both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup.

In the late 1970s, Jonjo had made the brave decision to turn freelance. Without a top stable behind him, his career might have been doomed, but Jonjo’s riding skills, established across the Co Cork countryside and now honed to become one of the best and strongest of jump jockeys, meant his services were snapped up, and he enjoyed astonishing success. In 1977-78, he not only scored the fastest 100 winners, but continued to a then-record 149 winners in one season.

He won the 1979 Cheltenham Gold Cup on Alverton, and followed up with Champion Hurdle wins in 1980 on Sea Pigeon and in 1984 on Dawn Run.

After the phenomenal 1986 Gold Cup victory with Dawn Run, Jonjo was turning his thoughts to training – but instead it was to be weeks of chemotherapy and all the attendant travails of serious illness. He remains convinced that the fall in Scotland caused the onset of cancer.

Before the illness, he had 24 horses for training; when he recovered, there were two. He swiftly and determinedly set about re-establishing Ivy House, Penrith, which he had bought a couple of years earlier, into as good a training establishment as was possible. He sank his own money into Ivy House, set in lovely Lakeland countryside, and installed virtually all the facilities that are enjoyed by Jackdaws Castle today.

Through riding as a freelance, he had seen many different stables, all with their own unique ways of training, yet all of which produced winners. It meant he was open to a wide range of ideas, and he installed many excellent facilities at Ivy House, including an equine swimming pool.

By the early 1990s, he had achieved all that was possible there, including a winner on the flat at Royal Ascot. But there was one drawback: the big owners and chief race meetings were all based in the southern counties. The money was not in the north. If he was to attract more owners, he would have to move south.

He looked at a number of places, and at one time was in serious discussion with Edward Gillespie, then Cheltenham’s CEO, about creating a training establishment in the middle of the racecourse, in the helicopter landing field.

When Jonjo first heard of Jackdaws, he had no intention of even viewing it, let alone moving there. This was because it was owned by someone else, who might therefore be calling the tunes and, having been freelance for so long, Jonjo was not at all sure he could work as a salaried trainer.

‘I had been my own boss for so long, I didn’t think I could work for someone else again.’

It was his now-wife, Jacki, from nearby Tewkesbury, who persuaded him to at least take a look.

Jackdaws Castle sits in the lofty Cotswolds, on wonderful old, well-drained soil above Stanton Hill, not far from Stow-on-the-Wold (and a mere 12 miles from Cheltenham racecourse). From the car park beside the Plough Inn at Ford, the casual observer can watch a string of bay horses, divided into five groups of four and all wearing number cloths, trotting past.

The trainer will see them settled in, return to the hub for declarations and staff meetings, and snatch a bacon butty in the ‘owners room’. Overlooking Number 1 yard, it is surrounded by trophies, photographs, three or four televisions replaying races, and racks of champagne flutes ready for entertaining.

Outside, three yards house 110 or so horses. There is a solarium, a therapy bay, horse walkers, wash-down bays, an indoor school and an equine swimming pool. Out on the 500 acres there are three grass gallops and two polytrack.

Jackdaws’ Castle’s previous incumbent had been David ‘the Duke’ Nicholson, so it was already well established – and was ripe for further improvement. Jonjo loved it on first sight, but the ownership niggle remained. Might the landlord sell it?

Indeed, he might.

HUGE RESPECT

What followed could have been straight out of an Irish sit-com. There was no way Jonjo could buy it. But there was one very special Irishman, for whom Jonjo not only rode but for whom he also had huge respect, who could: Ireland’s leading owner and legendary gambler J.P. McManus. Jonjo rang him and described it. J.P. told him he was currently in London.

‘So am I,’ fibbed Jonjo from his Cumbrian home, and arranged to see J.P. at his hotel for breakfast in the morning.

So Jonjo caught the last train out of Carlisle bound for London. Arriving in the early hours, he tramped the streets, trying to stay awake until it was time for his appointment.

During breakfast, conversation roamed over a broad range – almost anything, in fact, except Jackdaws.

Finally, as Jonjo was leaving, J.P. said nonchalantly, ‘By the way, whatever happened to that place in Gloucestershire?’

‘Oh, yes, Jackdaws,’ Jonjo replied, equally coolly. ‘I think you can have it if you want it.’

The rest, as they say, is history. Jonjo trained 100 winners in his first full season at Jackdaws, 2001-02, making him the only man to have scored 100 winners both as a jockey and as a trainer. He repeated the feat the following season; and in 2003, he was leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival, with a winner on each of the three days.

In 2005, Clan Royal was leading and looked like winning the Grand National at Aintree for the trio of J.P. McManus, Jonjo O’Neill and A.P. McCoy, until he was carried out by a loose horse at Becher’s second time. The ever-competitive A.P. told Jonjo afterwards that it was a ‘disaster’.

‘No,’ Jonjo replied, ‘disaster is when you’re lying in hospital waiting for the doctor to come and tell you whether you are going to live or die.’

That put it into perspective for A.P.. He told the new ITV racing team in a feature about Jonjo in January 2017, ‘That made me change from then on.’

In 2010, Jonjo did train the winner of the Grand National, Don’t Push It. He had two runners, both for J.P., and J.P.’s retained jockey A.P. McCoy had first choice. He was hankering towards the other one, Can’t Buy Time, but Jonjo strongly, and correctly, advised Don’t Push It. As a result, the Ulsterman and 20-times champion jockey finally achieved Grand National success, at his 15th attempt.

In 2012, the same team won the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Synchronised, and the 2013-14 season was Jonjo’s most successful so far, winning over £1.5 million in prize money. For the fifth time in 12 years, he trained three winners at the Festival – Holywell, Taquin Du Seuil and More Of That, who won the Ladbrokes World Hurdle.

His other winners included Johns Spirit in the Paddy Power Gold Cup and Shutthefrontdoor in the Irish Grand National.

Jonjo has now been in racing for 50 years, and his ambition and pursuit of excellence burn as strong as ever.

‘I want to be champion trainer. We’ll get there,’ he says simply.

He has the know-how and the facilities; all he needs now is the ammunition.

About a third of his yard will have Cheltenham entries, and about a third will be owned by J.P. McManus, a number of these overlapping.

Cheltenham remains the theatre where he wants to succeed more than any other. As he told Brian Viner in an Independent interview, ‘The magic of Cheltenham is very hard to explain ... from now on I will be excited every morning. It’s the ultimate in jump racing.

As soon as you’re done with Christmas, then, like everybody else in this game, all you’re interested in is Cheltenham.’

Festival Fever

The Irish at Cheltenham

by Anne Holland is published by The O’Brien Press in hardback at €19.99 /£16.99

www.obrien.ie